Originally, I was extremely outraged when I first read the BBC headline, "Papers alter Israel cabinet photo" and subhead, "Two ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers have altered a photo of Israel's new cabinet, removing two female ministers." I thought that these two papers were discriminating the women with no due cause.
In a way, the papers were discriminating the women unjustly, I think. However, after reading more of the BBC article, I sort of understand the papers' decisions. According to the article, ultra-orthodox Jews think that publishing pictures of women violates their female modesty. Since both the papers that altered the photos serve ultra-orthodox readers, I can understand that if they had published the original photo, they would have outraged their readers.
Still, the way one of the papers went about omitting the women was extremely strange. While one of the papers blackened out the images of the women, the other replaced them with two men. To me, the second option is unacceptable, because now some of that paper's readers might think those two men are actually on Israel's new cabinet. Instead of not offending their readers, now that paper has confused its readers.
So even though I don't like the fact that either paper removed the women from the picture, I think the first option is more accurate and fair. By blackening out the women, at least the readers know that women are serving in the new cabinet. By replacing the women with men's photos, readers are misled to believe that only men are worthy for Israel's cabinet.
Here is a copy of the original photo vs. the photo with two men inserted in the women's places,
taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7982146.stm:
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